Jonathan Rogers: Grinding Gear Games Managing Director on the company's success

The video game sector continues to impress. 

One of the biggest players in our sector has recorded another stellar year, reporting $105 million in revenue for the year to September 2024, up from $83.4 million the previous year.  

Grinding Gear Games, out of West Auckland, is behind the multiplayer online fantasy game Path of Exile. 

Managing Director Jonathan Rogers told Mike Hosking they’re probably doing better than average, having nailed their formula. 

Path of Exile is a service game, which is designed to be continuously updated over a longer period of time, which he says creates reoccurring revenue and an ongoing draw for players. 

Rogers says that people will play until they have their fill and go on to do something else, before a new release pulls them back in again. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
More good news from our video game sector, grinding Gear Games.
They reported one hundred and five million dollars worth of
revenue for the their year ending September. Are they're the
ones behind Path of Exile if you don't play games?
Jonathan Rodgers as the managing director and is with us,
Jonathan morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hey, good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Now you're the one with ten Cent involved, don't you.
They came in crowdfunded, then ten Cent came to town.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Yeah, so they're ten cents bought the company when would
have been now, probably twenty eighteen something like that.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
Are things booming? Is life good?

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Absolutely so. I mean we just released part of Excel
two into early access in December, and you know, it
was a great, great launch. We got to number one
on Steam, which is, you know, the largest sort of
video game sales platform, and we you know, more than
double the number of players who are online in any
one time compared to what we had for part of
Exil on before it.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
I was thinking about this this morning that often we
talk about the New Zealand story and the New zealandness
of whatever the success is. Is that applying to game
or well, basically as you can be anywhere kun't. It
doesn't sort of matter.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Yeah, you absolutely can be anywhere. And that's honestly, one
of the great things about is effectively what we are
is we're an export industry. That's, you know, effectively exporting
a bunch of things overseas, except we don't actually have
to shift anything. So, you know, New Zealand actually a
great place to be for that reason.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
Is your growth path the same as the industry's growth
past in this country. Is everybody doing wellish?

Speaker 2 (01:24):
Everyone's doing pretty well, I would say honestly at the moment,
we're probably doing better than average. Actually, why, well, it
really comes down to just I think that we've really
sort of managed to nail the formula we have. You know,
we've so we release what's called a games as a
service game. This means that we don't just have one
big release like a movie or something where you you know,
you come out and then you know, people pay money

(01:45):
and then they never do again. You know, we have
updates every four months. You know. That means we've got
kind of reoccurring revenue. And this is just kind of
a formula that you know, we've been able to do
really well. You know, we've been we we started selling
in twenty twelve, so and we've been going along since then.
So effectively, I just think we've managed to just develop
a good formula and make a good product.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
And the people hooked in that sense they once you've
got them, you've got them.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
Well, I mean, the people who play a game like ours,
they don't necessarily play all the time. So our sort
of idea is that you know, someone will will make
a release, people will play for two three weeks, that
kind of thing. Then you know they'll have their fill,
have their fun, then they'll go on, they'll do something else,
and then you know, we'll do a new release and
they'll come back again.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
Is there a common analogy in successful games, whether technologically
or marketing or concept wise.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
I mean, I guess fundamentally with games, you're looking to
deliver some kind of fantasy, you know, something that people
really enjoy, you know, like so that there's a lot
of that kind of going on going on with it. Obviously,
you do have to be technically locked in, you know,
the game needs to work well and that kind of stuff,
but it really just comes down to the design and
you know, are you delivering on you know, on the
fantasy that people want, and.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
What do you reckon the path is if I bring
you in a year, we're still growing, We're still booming.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
Well, i'd like to think so, so yeah, part excel too.
As I said, as an early access at the moment,
it's not technically you know, out fully yet. The way
that it works in the game industry a lot of
the time these days is that you know, you can
start selling your products, and you know a lot of
players who want to come in early will start playing it.
And so we were already incredibly successful just with that,
and so you know, when we actually go into full release,

(03:18):
when we've actually finished the game, I'm sure we'll even
be a lot more successful. Again.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
Fantastic, We'll stay in touch. Appreciate and congratulations. Jonathan Rodgers,
managing director of grinding Gear Games. For more from the
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